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The first quarterfinal of the US Open looks rather balanced on paper, with no. 9 Gasquet and no.4 Ferrer looking to battle it out for a place in the last 4. Both players were out of form in the summer hard court season and have somewhat struggled to reach this stage.
Gasquet reached this stage by winning against Russel and Robert (straight sets), Tursunov (russian retired in 4th set) and Raonic (5 sets). The frenchman was not in his best form prior to the US Open, but he will be happy to have reached the 2nd Grand Slam quarterfinal of his career. The win against Raonic was particularly impressive, but the fact is that Gasquet was really lucky to win it, since he was clearly second best in the first four sets, managing to win to tiebreaks to win the decider. Richard deservingly won the 5th set but overall he won 15 points less than Raonic and didn`t really deserve to go trough. The point is that Gasquet is still not at his top level, reaching the quarterfinals due to a combination of good (not great) play, weak draw and luck. His poor form prior to the US Open is not totally forgotten.
Ferrer is also not at his absolute best, needing three 4 setters to subdue Bautista-Agut, Kukushkin and Tipsarevic, after having won in three against Kyrgios. The spaniard has been really poor in the summer hard court season, winning only one match, losing against Bogomolov and Tursunov. On the other hand, his performances in Grand Slams in the last 2 years have been incredible.
Apparently it’s hard to separate this two at the moment, but the reality is that there should be a clear winner today, just like the bookies are accurately predicting: Ferrer. First of all, he is clearly the better player overall. Secondly, in the last 2 years David has learned to improve his level as rounds go by in Grand Slams, so we should see him play better today than in the previous week. Thirdly, and most important, Ferrer is a nightmare matchup for Richard.
The H2H says 8-1 for David, with Gasquet winning only TWO sets in the 9 meetings, in his only win, in 2008. Ferrer won 8 sets with 6-2 or less, as he has blown Gasquet off the court in almost all meetings. Of course, this is not a random fact. Ferrer is faster than Richard, he is fitter and has an amazing defense, a thing that frustrates the frenchman. Gasquet likes to hit winners, he is not moving exceptionally well and his serve is no more than good, not enough to win free points against one of the best returners on the tour. He can`t come to the net since Ferrer is a brilliant passer, so there are really no solutions for Richard to win against the spaniard except if the latter is beating himself. Also, Gasquet was visibly exhausted at the end of the Raonic match in the last round, which will be costly against a fit Ferrer.
This will be a tough fight from the baseline, few short points, and this style is exactly where Ferrer excells. Gasquet could keep it close at the beginning due to motivation, but it seems highly unlikely for him to win more than one set. He will struggle to find answers to David`s style of play and in the end Ferrer should win it in 3 or 4 sets. The experience at top level will also help the no.4 seed. I`m going with the set handicap instead of the game handicap because if Gasquet wins a set 6-3 for example, the game handicap will become really tough to cover. With the match-up (and some of the circumstances) so one sided, this is a maximum stakes bet for me. Look for Ferrer to win it something like 7-5 4-6 6-3 6-3.
Pick: Ferrer -1,5 sets
Odds: 1.65 @ Unibet
Stake: 10
Possible profit: 6.50
Event date: 4 September
